by Christian Bruer
1/350 HMS Wren (White Ensign)
The Black Swan Class Sloops were designd for ASW Warfare. Similar in length to the Escort Destroyers of the U.S. Navy they were nearly 300t lighter and running 19.25kt slower. However, the ships had a good ASW capability and a main armament of six 4” DP guns in double mountings. I built the model as the HMS Wren, because I wanted the workhorse and not the always present hero HMS Starling. Wren was commisioned at 11th August 1942. She took part in Captain Walker's famous 2nd Support Group, during her wartime duty she was involved in sinking five german subs. She also took up survivors of an sunken allied merchantman in May 1943 and in July she rescued seven survivors of the sunken U-607. After the war she served in the Royal Navy till she was sold for scrap on 2nd February 1956.
I build the excellent White Ensign Starling model nearly out of the box with only a few modifications at the bridge and the stack. For painting the model I used WEM's Colourcoats MS4, the decks were painted Humbrol 27. The small display was made of wood and the water was made from silicone as Frank Ilse has discribed in several articles.
